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May 12, 2025 - Lionel Nation
01:09:12
Secret Move by Pope Leo XIV Restores True Papacy—Why No One Is Talking About It
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Thrilled does not even explicate what I feel regarding Professor Eric Thaddeus Walters, who joins us again for this hour.
This is the hat trick, the troika, right?
This is number three.
As you have helped us dissect what is happening regarding the new pope, the old pope, and a lot of air quotes.
Eric, welcome back, my friend.
Sure, glad to be here.
Thank you.
Before we begin, I want to bring up something which is very important.
This is a wonderful tome that I want people to be aware of.
What is this, my friend?
Well, it's my revised doctoral thesis that the editor, very famous, prominent academic editor called Peter Lang published my own thesis advisor.
I'm very fortunate for this.
He wrote the preface for it, who at the time he was the chair of the Department of Classical Chliology at the University of Vienna, as well as the Ombudsman, the editor-in-chief of something called the CSEL, the Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, or the body of ecclesiastical writing, ecclesiastical Latin writings.
So patristic stuff, Latin stuff.
And it's just, it's basically what I mentioned in the previous interview that has to do with the Stoic philosophers, were the first ones who introduced the term of oneness unitas, and then through Tertullian, the Trinity, Cyprian ecclesiology, up through the age of Constantine.
And the reason that's important in terms of Christianity, the Catholic Church, and ecclesiology per se is because Up until Constantine, that whole period is free of accusations of either ecclesial partisanship, infighting, or ecclesial church-secular cohabitation, which is what the post-Constantinian epic is replete with.
It also has to do with hyperdimensional physics in the Anglo-American literature, or what in the Russian literature is called Torsion field physics.
I think I managed to decode the ancient linguistic science of those two fields of theoretical physics today.
It has to do with the double tetrahedron.
I don't want to get lost in the weeds here.
But anyway, I would recommend it if people are really interested in this stuff.
Where is this available?
Amazon?
Where?
Online.
Yeah, you can just Google it, Amazon, whatever you'll find it.
Well, that is excellent.
By the way, I...
Sorry, the last thing is it links, again, I don't know, coincidentally, ironically, providentially, with Pope Leo XIV, Prevost's own Episcopal and now would-be seemingly papal motto.
In illo uno unum, or in that one, meaning the second person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ, we are one thing only, is what it means, meaning the church.
Well, that is, see, now, remember, what I hope this does is to give people immediately, I don't want to call this Byzantine, but complicated, because you don't know this.
Because you're not here.
But let me tell you, let me give you an update on what the reaction was.
Isn't it great?
He's from Chicago.
He's one of us.
And he obviously will be a conservative or however you want to read this.
And it's great.
And he's terrific.
And here's where he went to Villanova and he likes the cup.
This is this simplistic anodyne syrupy saccharine blech that we're hearing.
So let's get down to brass tacks.
Professor Eric Thaddeus Walters, what do we have to know and make us shocked, if you will?
Yeah.
Well, I'll start.
You gave me kind of a convenient segue going back to the funeral of Bergoglio, a.k.a.
Pope Francis.
Saturday, the streets were lined during the funeral procession from St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City State.
And you are live in Rome.
You are in Rome.
Just in case somebody does not know this, you're in Rome.
Yeah, yeah.
So on the west side of the city, just on the other side of the Tiber River, and the funeral procession made its way at the end of the funeral from St. Peter's Basilica across the river, cutting through the city center to the Pope's Cathedral, which is not St. Peter's Basilica, rather, around the cathedral called St. John Lateran Palace and Basilica up to where he was laid to rest inside of St. Mary Major.
And when you look at the video footage, it's really cool because it's a beautiful view of the city center of Rome.
But obviously the streets are just lined with masses of people.
Now, was that because they were all great devotees of Bergoglio, a.k.a.
Pope Francis, even Catholic?
Well, it just so happened that, as I mentioned also in the first interview, Everything here was closed that day.
So tourists suddenly were not able to visit the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, much less the Vatican.
What do you do on a Saturday?
Well, this is a major historical event.
I don't know what's going on.
This Pope guy, you know, maybe like the president.
So I guess I'll just stand on the sidewalk and watch the funeral procession.
You know, people really understand this is another issue.
I'll start with something interesting regarding The beginning, the opening of the Conclave, and the chronology and the timing.
So, 133 Cardinals went into Conclave, into the Sistine Chapel, on Wednesday, somewhere around noon or 1 p.m.
And they had two rounds of voting.
Which means they should have really ended around 5 p.m.
At the very latest 7 p.m.
We should have seen the black smoke come out.
No one anticipated an election.
So in other words, black smoke.
No election.
No, no, no.
No Pope.
Well, it didn't come out.
I remember he was waiting and waiting and waiting until 9 p.m.
And when 7 o 'clock hit and it's 7.30 and it's 8, I started thinking, hmm.
Remember the previous interview we did?
I said there could be fireworks in the Sistine Chapel.
9pm?
That's a couple hours late.
Okay.
Next morning, and everybody saw the footage of the Cardinals entering the Sistine Chapel for the conclave.
Again, 133 or whatever.
133 went in.
Everybody swears the oath.
And then when they're all done, all sitting down, you have the Kameralengo that you see rather dramatically approaching the front doors of the Sistine Chapel from inside to close them.
And he pronounces the phrase in Latin, Extra Omnes, everybody out.
Okay?
Then they begin.
So that first round ends at 9 p.m., black smoke, no pope.
Next morning, they go in at 9 a.m.
However, We don't have any footage, and we don't technically know how many went in.
Blacksmoke comes out at the end of the morning session, 11:30 a.m.-ish, somewhere between 11:30 and noon, and that's pretty standard.
They break for lunch, they go back to where they all stay, the Domus Santa Marta, the St. Martha House, five-star luxury hotel, basically, inside Vatican City State, really plush.
Which is where, actually, Bergoglio, a.k.a.
Pope Francis, lived all these years.
Not in the apostolic power.
In a five-star hotel.
I think it's much nicer than that.
I mean, they don't have a pool, or I don't think they have a beauty spa, but I'd like to live there.
Yeah, but let me stop right there.
It's been talked about this austere, almost like just this plain It's spin.
Wow!
It was spin from the beginning.
It was spin from the beginning on, I know what you're getting at.
It has nothing to do with it.
There is something else that has something to do with it, which is if the, another theory I mentioned last time regarding the regency, if Benedict XVI had named the regent, that means he was barred from living in the apostolic power.
So, where the popes have lived since the 1400s.
So, in any event, they break for lunch, they go back to the St. Martha's house.
And, again, the afternoon session, we don't know how many went back in.
Number one.
Maybe it was only the 25 voting pre-Bergolian cardinals, meaning John Paul II and Benedict XVI cardinal.
We don't know.
The legit cardinals.
Secondly, even if they all did go back into the Apostolic Palace and Sistine Chapel, it may have only been the 25 cardinals that went in the chapel and everybody else if they weren't staying, if they didn't remain at the St. Martha's house having a very long post-lunch coffee break.
It may be that they remained in one of the large waiting rooms or chapels outside the system chapel.
And there's a reason for all of this.
Many reasons for all of this.
I'll come to that eventually.
In any event, he was voted then on the fourth ballot.
So it was around 5 p.m. the white smoke started coming out.
I had just finished a long day of work.
So I was with friends and work colleagues at a locale right on the other side of the wall of Vatican.
So we could pretty much see everything.
And the black smoke comes out.
The bells start to peal.
And everybody goes running to St. Peter's Square.
I mean, I watched all those live.
And then I'm listening to it.
We're watching it there.
I was the only one.
I was Latin.
So I'm telling her, "Please, please be quiet so I can hear it." I said, "Oh my gosh." I yelled out loud, "It's the American." Everybody looked at me.
And I will say that in the previous interview we did, I didn't prognosticate it, but when you asked me, you know, about is there a possibility for an American?
And between our previous two interviews, I'd thought about it, and I told you, I said, yeah, it's possible, given the geopolitical situation and all the strange events that went on around the funeral, you know, regarding heads of state in St. Peter's Basilica, talking to Zelensky, etc.
I said, well, there is, and I couldn't remember his name.
I said O'Malley, Dolan, and I said, but there's a curial cardinal here in Rome.
He's American, but I can't remember his name.
It slipped my tongue at the time.
So anyway.
Okay, so that's the chronology, if you will, just of the conclave process itself.
We still don't know.
I am cautiously, optimistically, prudentially hopeful that They may be in the process of fixing them.
Now, it would have been great, some might suggest, it would have been great if now would be Pope Leo XIV, you know, came out on the loggia, the balcony, central balcony of St. Peter's Basilica, and said, you know, my brothers and sisters, I apologize.
Basically, we've been in an impedency and a vacancy, you know, et cetera, et cetera.
Well, that would be like, you know, the journalist I mentioned, I've mentioned several times, Andrea Chocci, he dropped a one-liner saying, well, that would, if he had done that, all the hospitals and insane asylums, you know, in Lazio would have been full.
You can't take a sledgehammer to people.
There needs to be a gradual...
Right.
It can't take forever, but you can't hit people over the head with us all at once.
Using the Scudarian term for phobias, a systematic approximation.
We little by little by little by little.
Now, somebody might be tuning in right now when saying, I don't know what the hell you're talking about.
Let's go back to square one.
When we had spoken the first time, rule number one, suspicion number one, Rumor number one, conspiracy number one, whatever you want to call it.
Ratzinger, Benedict, never stepped down as Pope.
Exactly.
So that's what you missed.
And go back and we will have these for you.
Right.
But just so that you understand this.
Now we'll go into why and all that.
But the first one is...
He stepped down either because he threats on his life.
Who knows?
He was not.
And he wrote a rather cryptic Da Vinci Code-esque something that we already spoke that says, basically, I'm giving up the munis versus this.
There's a bifurcation of being the Pope and doing what the Pope can do.
You know, I don't know in real life where that works.
You know, having a driver's license but not having a car, I don't know.
But he theoretically said, I'm the Pope.
I'm still it.
That's why I'm still wearing my uniform, so to speak.
I'm still, I forget what everything, he did not relinquish certain things.
So Bergoglio, Francis, it is thought, point two, Was not really the Pope.
Right.
There's another part, and I don't want to speak for this.
We talked about the correct quorum.
You said, Eric, if I recall correctly, if there are more than 120 cardinals or something to that effect, or...
Or if the proper quorum, the proper number of cardinals who were legitimate cardinals appointed by legitimate popes, and the last legitimate pope would have been Benedict, anybody else in there violates the rule.
And the question I also have is, does the oath of secrecy preclude somebody from saying, this is invalid?
Yeah.
Nobody can speak, which is already today you've got, you know, these cardinals who are dropping, you know, comments.
I mean, some cardinals are saying it was 89 the vote that elected them.
Some are saying it was more than 100.
They should have even been saying that in the first place.
Right.
So going back to this, so what they could have done is this, and please forgive me and just stop me, just say seat or shut up or whatever it is.
As they closed the door, theoretically, they could have said, all right, folks, you bulk, you go have a nice, as you say, postprandial coffee for about 12 hours.
We, the real legit Cardinals, 3, 10, 20, whatever the number is, we're going to go in.
We're going to vote so that we know it's legit, but they don't have to know it's legit or why it's legit.
Kind of getting around the idea that you have all of these cardinals that are illegitimate, who really aren't cardinals for purposes of voting for the papacy.
Does that make sense?
Yeah.
This is so labyrinthine.
It's Byzantine.
It's Harry Potter.
Well, given the stakes for both the Catholic Church as an institution, and then...
The spiritual dimension, this is a spiritual battle between principalities and powers and human beings.
And then on the geopolitical scale, and given the current state of affairs in the world, this is a most significant consequence.
In any event, we don't know.
That's why I said the smoke coming out Wednesday evening, May 7th, 2025.
Not coming out until 9pm local Rome time was highly unusual, and I'm not at all anticipated.
Black smoke, yes, but until 9pm, which leads one, you know, again, that's the importance of being, having your things together, being transparent as reasonably as possible, because otherwise then people are left to kind of wander off into the land of...
Confusion and a lot of irrelevant and unproductive and counterproductive hypotheses and theories that have nothing to do with the situation.
Now, let me, again, this is, you know, you have forgotten about this more.
We are brand new.
We are novices.
And compared to what I'm hearing, here in New York we have people like Cardinal Dolan and others.
Bless his heart.
What is he supposed to do?
Come in and, you know, do the Jeremiah Denton?
It's all, it's nonsense!
It's bullshit!
You know, he can't, he's got to, of course, be political.
But, of course, the media are just missing everything.
And to repeat something which you said last time, which is the most important, for anybody who says, what do I care about the Pope?
I'm not Catholic.
This is the longest.
Non-hereditary, non-familial, non-hereditary, if you will, monarchical theocracy.
Am I getting that right?
In the world.
This is bigger than anything else.
Now, let me show, if I could, we have, may we look at some of these photos, if you will?
What is the significance of this?
What are we looking at?
Okay, so this is the, whenever the new pope is elected, They immediately drop the, call it, if you will, a drape, bearing the papal coat of arms, the papal insignia of the immediately preceding legitimate legal pope.
So, for example, when Cardinal Ratzinger was elected, Pope Benedict XVI, April 19, 2005, what did they drop down, even though it's now new Pope Benedict XVI?
What you would see on there was the code of norms of the Pope with John Paul II.
Same thing when...
For two reasons.
One, they don't have enough time to whip a new thing together.
And two, because the intention, again, semiotically, symbolically, is to demonstrate the continued line of Petrine succession.
Okay?
The Pope.
It's continuous.
Now, whose symbol is this?
Hold on.
When Jorge Mario was elected on March 13th in 2013, they did not drop the papal coat of arms of his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI.
You could say, well...
He was still alive.
They're calling him emeritus, which people don't understand what emeritus means.
It does not mean retired anyway.
So they didn't drop that, and what they did drop was just basically a bed sheet, a white blank bed sheet.
There was nothing on it.
Wow!
Go on Google, you'll find all this stuff yourself.
So it's all open source.
Why did they do that?
Well...
There's one of many question marks above all this.
And then this, this is unprecedented.
What you're looking at is unprecedented.
So this is, again, this past Wednesday, Thursday, May 8th, 5.30 p.m.-ish.
They drop it, and that's the first thing you see.
And then he comes out.
Prebost.
Hopefully the 14th.
This neither I nor anyone has ever seen, which means this was already prepared, going back to the theory of the regent and the regency that Pope Benedict XVI had already organized.
So this is nobody's symbol?
It gets better.
Okay, so I don't know if you can zoom in on it.
I know.
I don't know if you can zoom in on it.
No, I don't.
Okay.
Well, um, you'll, so what you have here is the papal tiara.
Okay.
The tri, um, the tri, what do they call it?
Tri ring crown.
I forget what it's called.
The tiara.
Okay.
There's three rings around the, um, the mitre.
So it becomes a tiara.
The three rings, by the way, they symbolize the Pope's authority and power in reigning, Reigning.
Now, does this help?
Excuse me.
Does this help at all?
Yeah, sure.
We can do that one first.
Okay.
So you see, so at the top, that big weird cone-like hat, you see three rings.
Right.
And that symbolizes the Pope's authority and power in ruling and reigning and exercising his authority and power.
It's called sancti in Latin.
Sanctificani, gubernandi, and magistrandi.
Sanctifying, meaning sacramental grace and things.
Gubernanti, or governing.
And magistrandi, not just teaching, but being responsible as the holder, the defender of the deposit of faith, the magisterium of the church.
Then you see the two tails on the back of any bishop's mitre, or in this case the Pope's Chiara, which are They can sometimes be actually tied to the two crossed keys.
Sometimes they can be as you see them here.
Part of it's artistic style, given the period of historical epic.
And then, below, you see that red cord with kind of like a little fioc or fioc kick at the bottom, like a tassel, I guess.
So, in other words, the keys are bound together.
Okay?
The munus.
The office of papacy pope and the ministerium, the exercise of the papacy, are intact.
Okay?
All right.
Now go to the previous one.
Okay.
This one.
Yeah.
This is...
I don't want to use any...
Does it look like that to me?
No.
Not only is there no cord binding the keys, the tassels from the back of the tiara...
Are not bound to them either.
And most people would not even know what in the world this is, obviously.
But those who know these things, whether it's ecclesiastical heraldry, papal insignia, and the semiotics and symbolism behind this, you talk about a Marshall McLuhan type of visual what-message communication.
And that's one of the reasons I have...
I am, as I said, cautiously optimistic that they are setting the bark of Peter right.
Not going to happen overnight.
So let me get this straight, because I'm slow.
What they're doing...
In other words, that says we are in both where we've transitioned from and impeded to a vacancy.
We've been in that situation.
For the past, since 2013.
But the institutional church is handling it.
We're working on it.
Work in progress.
It's like your job, Mike Denton.
Right.
Let's look at this.
What is this?
This is what happened.
So this happened now.
It should have happened before, but it doesn't matter.
So, for example, tourists may have noticed if they, you know, were here in these previous weeks before the conclave after or when Bergoglio died, like if you went to the Vatican post office, that's a big thing.
You get a postcard, you get the Vatican stamp and the postmark on it.
Whenever there's a vacant seat, so the Pope has died or the Pope has legally, lawfully, properly abdicated, what you'll see on all official Documents from Vatican City State and the Holy Apostolic See and even the postmarks because they're very precious for, you know, people to collect stamps and stuff.
This is what you see.
You don't see the tiara.
You see an umbrella over the keys.
The keys are still bound, but there's no pope.
And so the umbrella at the top means that God's watching over things.
It's the divine presence.
But it ain't a pope!
But there's no Poe.
It looks like a circus carousel or something.
This is the Sede Vacante.
This is the Vacancy, not V-A-C-A-N-C-Y.
And before that, many thought it was the Impedency.
We've talked about that before.
So, just in case you're up to it, because symbology, semiotics, symbolism, all of that means something.
This is what you have when there is no Pope.
And many people believed this is what was the case after Ratzinger.
Not an impedency, but a vacancy.
There was, or was there?
Excuse me.
No, it was impeded.
I'll just remind everyone, especially those who are new.
So the date is this.
February 11th, 2013.
Pope Benedict XVI announces that he's being forced into an impeded sea.
He's retaining the Moon with the office of the papacy because he's not able to exercise the ministry.
And that will take effect at 1 p.m. on March 1st.
And then they go into an illegal and legitimate conclave and they elect Bergoglio, who takes the name Francis, on March 13th.
that month.
And so we remain, however, in an impeded sea, we were usurped on the cafe that I paid through the chair of Peter until the death of Pope Benedict XVI on December 31st, 2022.
And that's when we enter the vacant sea, which over the past few weeks, all the talking, you know, media legacy, media, MSN especially.
But either way, there was no Pope.
As soon as Benedict did what...
When he died.
No, there was a pope.
But he was a prisoner.
But it was impeded.
It was impeded.
Right.
Okay.
Now, this is one of the best examples, almost.
And this actually happened in a case of mine.
A fellow got married.
When he looked at the date and his marriage license, he happened to go through his papers and found his divorce decree.
His divorce decree was one day...
After his marriage.
So his marriage was void ab initio.
They were married.
They had a ceremony.
But he was still married.
So in a weird way, you have Benedict Ratzinger before.
He steps down basically telling people, I'm leaving.
You can almost see the gun to his head.
Either they threatened him or whatever it was.
He then gets into this.
We're not going to get into it.
I love this.
1 p.m.
Is it Roman time?
Is it classic time?
Is it sunset?
I mean, it...
And he knew exactly what he was doing.
He played in riddles and he was brilliant.
So, you have this person who steps down, but not really.
I'm basically in exile.
I'm here.
I'm the Pope.
And by the way, should he not have changed his clothing?
Didn't he wear the vestments or whatever the words are?
For the papal uniform?
Wasn't there something to that where he was telling you, I'm still here?
Yeah, he kept all the papal insignia.
Yeah.
But the only thing they did not do is when he was laid in state in St. Peter's Basilica, he was not laid in state with what is called the ferula or the Pope's crozier or pastoral staff.
Number one, there's a difference between any other bishop has a crozier, which looks like a shepherd's crook, right?
The thing at the top, the curved thing.
The Pope is the only one who actually uses a crucifix.
It's basically a big crucifix.
When he was laid in state and he was buried, they're supposed to lay there in state holding it in their arm.
They did not.
However, someone, if you look at his hands, he's got rosary beads wrapped around his hands, folded, and you will see someone put a mini ferula in his hand.
Whoa!
Bergoglio didn't have any of that.
Bergoglio, they smacked him in like a Count Dracula coffin, which he said he didn't want.
He didn't want to wake.
He didn't want to be exposed.
You've got to know he's dead.
Right.
It's not just trapping.
There's a lot of importance.
Right.
You have to verify.
Trust and verify.
Yes.
Well, they didn't give him anything.
One theory could be that, well, that way they don't have to avoid the thorny issue of explaining why wasn't he buried with the ferula or even just a bishop.
Right.
Now, did he, Eric, did he know?
Here's what I can't understand.
Did he know this?
Did he say, wait a minute, hold it.
I can't, no.
I can't be the Pope.
I want to be the Pope.
I really do.
We have to fix this.
Let me talk to him.
You know, Benny, you know, whatever.
Please, we've got to fix this.
You can't do this.
He knew this.
You're saying he went, of course he knows.
They have people who say, not for nothing, Pope.
He's also known as this Pope.
Francis, we have got to correct this.
Do something.
He knew it.
Ratzinger knew it.
Everybody knew it.
They basically were, this is almost like misprision, failing to report the violation of a rule.
This blows my mind.
And before we forget, please forgive my enthusiasm, because every time I talk to you, I say, how can this happen?
What about the number of the cardinals, the quorum?
How many are in there?
Who can actually vote?
What numbers would invalidate any actual attempt at voting?
What are the numbers?
Well, the numbers, so let's pretend this was back in 1978.
Well, yeah, 1978.
Okay, the year of the three popes.
Paul VI, John Paul I, John Paul II.
You can't, there cannot be more than 120.
Eligible cardinal electors voting in a conclave.
Why?
That was the law established, the canon established under Paul VI, I think it was 1972.
So even if, for whatever, now there's no prohibition against the popes appointing a thousand cardinals, you just can't have more than 120.
So it's not the number of cardinals.
No, no, because not of that, because the voting age...
Once you turn 80, you lose your vote.
You cannot vote.
And therefore, how you stack, if you will, the college, you have to be very careful.
You don't want to supersede.
I mean, let's say, let's your guess.
I don't think I'm going to check out too soon.
So for now, it'll be like maybe six months or a year.
There's actually 123, but I know they turn 80 in another six months.
I'm in good health.
I'm not going anywhere.
That kind of thing.
So it works itself out.
I mean, he's, you know, 135, 15 over.
Young, you know.
How did that happen?
How did a lot of things happen?
It's incredible!
I mean, these are people and that's why this week I'm thinking, you people are talking about deep dish pizza and the Cubs and they're saying, and do you think that this Pope We'll be conservative.
They're not even following the rules about being the Pope.
How do you expect him to care?
I mean, this is what I've been going through.
I'm sorry.
No, no, no.
A couple of things right there.
Number one, obviously, we don't care if the guy's progressive, liberal, conservative, traditionalist, what we care, or what the Catholic Church should care about, is whether or not the guy is...
Legally, legitimately, validly pope, meaning has the munos.
That's it.
Through the eyes of faith, if you will.
In this case, that's what the munos is all about.
The Holy Spirit provides a singular, unique grace to the successor of Peter, which we haven't even gotten to what that even means yet.
We'll be able to do it now.
Secondly, going back to then, well, how many cardinals actually voted in the conclave?
133 were sworn in.
But who voted?
Was it only the pre-2013, 25 cardinals?
We don't know.
The only one that can make that public is the Pope.
If this guy, Pope Louis XIV, is the Pope, then he will have to do that at some point.
Not tomorrow.
I wouldn't even expect in a month.
But if this is going where it seems like, I'm not saying it's 100%, but it seems like...
Or where you hope it's going because you want there to be continuity.
But Eric, here's the problem.
Let's say he comes in.
All right, I'm coming.
Look, I took care of it.
Excuse me.
You've got about 50 cardinals appointed by a non-pope.
What about them?
Their appointment is void ab initio as well.
So he can't do that.
If he does, then everything else is...
You'll love this.
I can't take this!
So, this guy was appointed cardinal by Bergoglio.
So he's not a cardinal.
Doesn't matter.
Wait, wait, wait.
Doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter who is elected Pope.
What matters is who is electing the Pope.
Right, okay.
Stupid question.
Could I be the Pope?
You were baptized Roman Catholic?
Yep.
Okay.
Well, let's say you got off the golf course, came back out of retirement.
Yeah, they could have elected you.
A layman can be elected Pope.
As long as you're baptized at a Roman Catholic.
You don't even have to be a priest.
Okay, okay, okay, okay.
And that's going to bring me...
What I wanted to do is also just go through...
Because I think you'll find it provides an incredible insight through an historical lens of who these previous popes, Leo I through XIII, are.
Because the name he selected, which is another, in my mind, potentially very positive sign for what I'm suggesting here, that there is hope.
Because Leo, in terms of papal history, 13 previous Leos.
It is a loaded, loaded name for a Pope to select.
Wasn't Leo XIII?
Didn't he endorse that Vin Mariani, the cocaine extract, the tincture, there was a product called Vin Mariani and it was cocaine wine and it was Pope Leo XIII.
Yeah.
Maybe.
I don't know.
Other people, it was when cocaine was...
Anyway, it's some narco lore, but check it out.
Okay.
Yeah, look, that's interesting.
I think Jules Verne loved it, too.
Anyway, go ahead.
All right.
So, the first Pope Leo, Pope Leo I, usually referred to as Pope Leo the Great.
So all these Leos, they're loaded.
When these guys choose their names, there's always a deliberate reason.
So Pope Leo I, Pope Leo the Great, was Pope from the years 440 to 461.
And he was Tuscan, for all of the people that like the Tuscany.
A few things.
Leo was the last pope right before the definitive collapse of the Western Roman Empire in 476.
He grew up in here in, well, first in Tuscan but then here in Rome, in the early 5th century during the two major sacks of Rome by the Vandals and the Visigoths when they tore down the aqueducts, which would then not be repaired for over a thousand years.
451, the fourth ecumenical council in the history of the church, the Council of Chalcedon, when they For the first time, finally, really hammer out, what does it mean to say Jesus Christ?
That is to say, what does it mean to say Jesus is the Christ, or Christ, right?
It's called Leo's Tome.
The Eastern Roman Emperor invited him to come to Constantinople and preside over this council.
He responded politely, saying, I appreciate the invite.
I can't because I'm having to deal with something you're supposed to be dealing with here.
With all due respect, namely a guy named Attila, or Attila the Hun.
But here are my opinions on the matter.
He sends it over, it's called Leo's Tome.
That's when they say, Jesus Christ is one person, one being, and has two natures, human and divine.
Because of this thing called the Aryan controversy that's been going on for centuries.
Saying that at best, Jesus Christ is not fully divine, just kind of like a demigod or a superhero like Hercules.
Back from the speeding bullet, but not God.
Okay.
The reaction of the council unanimously declares, we have this all in the records, okay?
Unanimously declares that Peter has spoken through Leo, and that what Leo says is Orthodox, and the council unanimously, East and West, Greek and Latin, adopt this as the Orthodox position of the Church.
A few years later, 454, he gets Attila to not, Sack the city of Rome.
Doesn't really matter because another guy will do it the following year.
And he's the first pope to use the most important and also the oldest continuously surviving title and office of any kind called, in two words in Latin, Pontifex Maximus, which means literally most awesome bridge builder.
And we can come back to that at a later moment.
Also, you'll like this.
His immediate successor, Pope Leo I, was...
Pope hilarious.
My favorite.
Okay.
So that's Pope Leo I. So we're talking about the collapse of civilization, the definitive definition of what does it mean to be a Christian, who is this Jesus Christ character, as well as a lot of geopolitics involved.
All right, that's Leo I. Leo II, he was Sicilian.
He was Pope for only about 18 months, 682 to 683.
However, now, once again, The issue is over the past 60 years, this is the 7th century, so 682 to 683, suddenly Islam has exploded out of the former Roman province of Arabia, the Arabian Peninsula.
And by 683, now most of the Eastern Roman Empire has been conquered by the Islamic Caliphate.
So they call it another ecumenical council.
This is the sixth one in history, Constantinople, Constantinople III.
And they try to desperately reunify the Eastern and Western Roman Empire and get over all of the ecclesiastical squabbles between the Latin church move.
West and the Greek church in the East.
That's Leo II.
Only 18 months.
Leo III, he was from Rome, but his mother was probably Greek, and his father was probably from Syria.
He's the guy in St. Peter's Basilica on Christmas Day in the year 800.
Culminated that thing we discussed last time, the beginning of European nobility in the Papal States.
He crowns Charlemagne, the first Holy Roman Emperor inside of St. Peter's Basilica on Christmas Day in the year 800 here in Rome.
And he tries to basically arrange a marriage between Charlemagne, now the Holy Roman Emperor.
And the regent for the Byzantine Emperor, the Eastern Roman Emperor, a woman named Irene, Queen Irene, Princess Irene.
All right, that's Leo III.
Leo IV, this is 847 to 855.
He's Roman, and his most probably famous claim to fame is the Battle of Ostia in 849, after Charles Martell and Merovingians.
You remember we discussed last time in...
732 pushed back the Islamic Caliphate from the south of France back to the south of Spain.
The next time they try to attempt to invade Europe is through the Italian Peninsula at the port of Rome called Ostia.
This is 849 and Pope Leo IV managed to get the emerging maritime powers of Napoli.
I forget the other two.
And they managed the Battle of Ostia and they not only Conquer the forces, the Islamic Caliphate's forces to the Saracen.
But they're the ones that actually wind up building all the walls I already talked about around what is today Vatican City State.
So all those medieval walls you see around the Vatican in the neighborhood, it was built by the captured combatants on the part of the Islamic Caliphate and Saracen after the Battle of L.C.N.
849.
That field of war.
These are considered to be the four good Popes Leo.
Okay?
One, two, three, four.
Significant, again.
Just the essentials of Catholic dogma, Christian teaching, theology, a lot of geopolitics, and interreligious stuff, as well as unification of and among and within the West itself, both secularly and religiously.
Okay.
Then we have a real flip.
This is now what's referred to by church historians as the Cyclum Obscurum.
The obscure age, the dark age, popularly referred to as the pornocracy.
The pornocracy?
Dirty porn?
Dirty?
No, no, dirty is dirty graphics from Greek pornos.
I guess this would be Latin, but anyway.
Yeah, yeah.
So basically, the entire 10th century.
Oh, and I wanted to ask, because you brought up, you mentioned Pope John at a certain point.
It was right after that previous Pope, Leo IV, that Pope Jones supposedly was Pope.
Never was Pope.
I don't want to get lost in the weeds on that.
Yeah, that's for later on.
So the next four Leos, the pornography, 10th century.
None of them were Pope, let's see, six months, eight months, three and a half years.
Yeah, so Popes, Leo V, VI, VII, they basically were, they were, Manipulated by the domine, that is the Roman noble women who had control over the governance of the city of Rome at the time, and consequently the popes as well.
Very, very, as you say, Byzantine stuff, run by basically the elite established noble women in Rome.
That's throughout the 10th century, called the pornography.
Okay.
Leo VIII kind of breaks out of that.
He's Pope for three years, 963 to 964.
At first he was anti-Pope, and then he was Pope.
And he was also a layman when he was elected Pope, and they had to do in one day, you know, his diaconal ordination, his priestly ordination, his episcopal ordination and consecration.
Then there's Leo IX, and it's funny, I mentioned this last time.
You asked about what's the difference between Eastern Orthodoxy and the Roman Catholic Church.
Well, the next Leo, Leo IX, 1043 to 1054, it was that Pope Leo that sent Cardinal Humber to Constantinople to excommunicate the Patriarch and the Emperor of Constantinople, the double excommunication of the Great Schism.
1054, which led to the definitive split between Eastern Orthodoxy and the Roman Catholic Church.
Pope Leo X, probably one of the more famous popes of the Renaissance, he was a Medici.
He came right after Pope Julius II, 1513 to 1521, and he commissioned He continued to commission Raffaello, the rival of Michelangelo, to paint the second room for his offices, as well as update the architectural design of St. Peter's Basilica.
And he was caught in the crosshairs fighting a balance of power between the new emerging superpowers in the New World.
Notice the dates, 1513 to 1521.
So now you have Spain, vassal state of the Holy Roman Empire in the New World, so-called.
As well as England.
And this leads to King Henry VIII.
Eventually, a couple of years later, when the Pope is about to grant him an annulment, the Holy Roman Emperor steps in and says, "No, you don't.
Sacked Rome." And the reason is because he didn't want to upset the balance of power in the new world between this new superpower, England, and the superpower, Spain.
Because Spain, unbeknownst to most historians apparently, was actually a vassal state of the Holy Roman Empire.
So a divorce between King Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon of Spain would have meant a divorce between England and Spain, the Holy Roman Empire, and the New World.
Okay.
He's also, Pope Leo X is also the guy, supposedly, who said, because he's the last layman to be elected pope, by the way, in the Church of 1513, and they had to do the same thing, rapid ordinations.
And supposedly he said that now that we have the papacy, let's enjoy it.
We don't know that he actually ever said that it was attributed to him by the Venetian ambassador of the Doge at the time.
Pope Leo XI, he was Pope for only 27 days.
He was also Medici Pope, probably got whacked.
The contender in that papal election, by the way, Jesuit Robert Bellarmine.
Pope Leo XII, six years.
He was interested, maybe this, I don't know if this is what you were referring to before, but probably the 12th, 1823 to 1829.
He was very suspicious of vaccines, which were all the rage.
And he, this is also the time now, if you remember I also in the first interview mentioned, when would you want to say the infiltration of the Catholic Church, the papacy first began?
I said 1775, Weishaupt.
Well, so now you got the whole...
The Illuminati.
The Illuminati was a vice.
Right, right.
So now we're in the throes in Europe of Masonic Wars and Freemasoning.
So he kind of goes on a rampage against a number of different Freemasonic sects.
And by the way, this is Leo the...
This is the Vaccine 12th was Vaccine.
Okay, okay, okay.
Leo the 12th.
So it was on a rampage against all sorts of secret.
Well, Leo XII sounds like my kind of guy.
I'm just saying.
Yeah.
Leo XIII.
So the last Leo before this current guy.
1878 to 1903.
I think he's the third longest reigning pope in the church.
25 years.
He's also the first human person ever both filmed and on film his voice is recorded.
Wow.
He was, after the so-called unification of Italy, the Roman question, he's a self-declared prisoner of the Vatican, within the Vatican, not by the Vatican, the Catholic Church, but because of the newly formed monarchical Republic of Italy.
He's considered to be the Pope who's the first Pope that addresses the issue of the dignity of the worker.
Through an encyclical, Rerum Novarum, kind of set the tone for the 20th century's social doctrine regarding the rights of workers, the dignity of the worker.
He did not get mixed up.
He was not either a progressive socialist or a diehard capitalist.
He solved problems between the two.
I think it was legitimate.
He was also considered kind of the first Marian Pope of the modern age.
And he was very big into education from K through, you know, higher academia.
And lastly, Saint, a French girl, Carmelite nun, Saint Therese of Lisieux, the little flower.
Little flower, yeah.
Well, she...
Desperately wanted to, several years before the proper age, canonical age, get into a Carmelite monastery in the north of France and Normandy.
So with her father, they made a pilgrimage down here to Rome and to have an audience with the Pope.
We have the 13th in St. Peter's Basilica, where she famously threw herself at his feet and cried and said, please let me enter the 15th.
And he told her, you know, don't worry when you turn 15. Which was even still a couple years earlier than she could have.
He said, "When you turn 15, it's God's Word again." Well, that happened.
She did.
She also, two more things about her in this.
She, in her autobiography, which her superior forced her to write, called "Story of a Soul," she struggles for a while with this inexplicable desire to be a priest.
She kind of works it out in the end, realizing it was really just a desire, as she calls it, for an extreme life.
Of love.
Mystical.
But this has to do with the idea of since, you know, the 60s, the whole in the Catholic Church, you know, why can't women be ordained priests?
So she's kind of manipulated that way regarding that discussion.
And the other thing is corruption in the priesthood.
Because she mentions in her autobiography, she was 13 years old, but on the train ride from Paris down here to Rome, she happened to, you know, the coach was basically filled with a bunch of priests.
And she never goes into any details, specifics of what she heard in these conversations, you know, on the other side of the seat.
But she was completely scandalized by what she heard.
She didn't go into details.
One can only imagine.
Anyway, I find this.
I find the selection of the name Pope Leo XIV.
Now, before you leave this, let me add to you this.
This is Vin Mariani.
This is Pope Leo XIII.
Awards apparently give some type of almost like the British royal family.
But this was the first, I believe, this was a very famous cocaine tincture or something.
So there you go, Mr. Roman expert.
Take that!
I'm going to write that down.
I'm writing in my notes here.
My friends will appreciate that.
Yes.
So just going full speed right now.
First, I want there to be correction and calm in the church.
I really do.
Leo XIV maybe, maybe could be the first, not the first, but a legitimate squared away He might have actually corrected this.
And even though he was selected, perhaps incorrectly, his cardinalship may be in question.
His papacy isn't because you must be elected by cardinals, not necessarily be a cardinal.
As you said, you could be a layperson.
Remember, if...
Even just one of the post-2013 Bergoglian cardinals voted.
Right.
And under the code of secrecy, the cloak of silence, you know, the Get Smart edition, we will never know.
Which I think is kind of interesting.
But just to understand, the rules are the papacy, the Vatican, this is not...
There's no sunshine law there.
You know, Brandeis said sunshine is the best disinfectant.
There's no disinfectant there.
They don't care whether you or anybody else agree.
They are on their own.
They're between them and God.
And there's no such thing as a FOIA request or any kind of transparency.
And it's not out of rudeness.
They're just saying this is not a worldly tribunal.
You don't have any right to this.
And I kind of appreciate that.
The Pope can do whatever the Pope wants to.
The only one that could break the papal seal of secrecy is the Pope.
The Pope could do that.
If the guy is legitimate, then I find it highly difficult, if not impossible.
After all of this, you have to You can't let this just...
There's no sweeping this under the rug.
And there's also something interesting...
I'm sorry.
Well, I was going to say, at the same time, we're not doing it with a sledgehammer.
We've already been through that for over the past decade.
Right.
Basically, like, I don't know, imagine your drug-addled or intoxicated uncle that lives with you always leaving the place a mess.
Like Leo the 13th.
A mess.
Always leaving the place a mess, and the family, the elephant in the room, and everybody cleans up.
Right.
What's the deal?
But there's also, I just think there's something interesting about the legit Cardinals, the pre-Bergoglio Cardinals passing the post.
Hello!
And by the way, Cardinal Dolan was selected by whom?
Benedict XVI.
Okay, good.
So he's in.
But I mean, I'm wondering if they're looking at like, uh-huh.
It's like those people who are considered royalty versus nobility.
You know what I mean?
There's a lot of trying to not create any...
We're beyond scandal.
We're beyond scandal.
There's a lot of saving face, but on both sides.
Kind of like we talked about the previous two interviews.
You guys knew.
If you didn't know, you were asleep with a switch.
If you didn't know, you were complicit.
So both sides, ironically, you know, let's what I call the Rodney King argument.
You know, can't we all just get along?
A couple things, too.
Whatever the insiders say.
What about this feller?
Where did he come from?
That's number one.
Do you like him?
Which is good for me.
Number three.
What is he going to do?
He was Mr. Tweeter before.
A little tweet-heavy.
He was giving Trump a run for his money.
And he was saying some things which, listen, if you're the Pope, you have to kind of say papal things.
I'm sorry.
I don't expect a Pope to say, lock him up!
You know, take care of that Omar Kilmar Garcia and deport him!
You're not going to get that from the Pope.
So I understand that.
But first, what does the inside scoop say about Mr. Prevost or Provost or Revost or whatever his name is.
What do they say?
Well, I mean, it goes both ways.
That's what I hear.
There's people that think conservative traditionalists don't like them, but it's all over the board, honestly.
It's all over the board.
What I can say is don't listen to anybody what anybody tells you.
Like it's media, certainly.
Maybe there's still a lot to shake out here.
And what's important, there's been a lot of popes in history that, you know, the conservative or the liberal bloc votes for them, and then suddenly they're disappointed because the pope's job is to protect the deposit of faith, the teaching of the church, both in theory and in action and practice.
Now, he's also Augustinian.
Augustinian, yeah.
That predates the Jesuits, correct?
Yeah.
What are they like?
What's their rap?
Well, they're educators.
They're kind of like Benedictine monks, except they're not.
They're Augustinians.
When Augustine, after he had his conversion, he leaves Milan, back down here to Rome, and then goes back to North Africa, to Carthage.
And he turns his family villa there into...
A monastery.
He makes it a little different from the Benedictine rule, but it's basically like a Benedictine monastery, but it's called Augustine and the Order of Augustine.
Very big in education.
A serious education, like the Dominicans and the Jesuits would be.
But the order started in the 5th century.
So the bottom line is, this is very, and I don't know why, Eric, when we talked last time, it was very disconcerting.
I want there to be calm.
I want there to be, you know, some type of, not solemnity, but order.
I want there to be, I don't want to see rancor and confusion.
I'll tell you something.
And again, this is just personal observation and existential experience.
It feels, and it's not just me saying, I mean, you know, again, peers, friends, acquaintances, everybody's kind of like, it feels like something's been lifted.
Right, right, right.
Maybe that may just be repercussions, you know.
But it could also be something real.
Spiritual, mystical, transcendental is happening.
And therefore, because we're part of the cosmos, humans, it's going to be palpable.
You're going to pick up on it.
So a lot of people have felt that way.
Question number one, will women ever be priests?
Well, I mean, if they are, then that means that it may be in a new church.
I haven't dropped the bomb yet, so if this doesn't resolve itself, if things don't go the way we hope they're going to go, then what does that effectively mean for the Catholic Church?
There is an answer, and I have it, but I'm going to.
I would prefer to stay not Pollyannishly positive, but authentically, genuinely.
Given the evidence that we have so far, that this is, but it's just going to take a little time.
People need to be patient.
Okay, now, okay, that being said, assume you were a sci-fi writer of sorts, kind of like the L. Ron Hubbard, so to speak, of this, and you were to come up with some kind of a dystopian version, which is not too far-fetched, not that you're predicting it, but give us a realm.
It's like when you go to a doctor, you say, well, this is either This is either a hangnail or a brain tumor.
There's a tremendous range there.
Take us to the worst range, the worst realm.
Okay.
And like an academic science.
Exactly.
Theoretical rhetoric.
Yeah, whatever it is.
Well, worst case scenario, I could see if this is not rectified.
In the year 2036, the visible...
Sacramental Catholic Church ceases to exist forever after as such, and all we have left is the grace of baptism.
Cardinal Robert Sarra said as much a couple of years ago in something he wrote as well as in an interview.
Everybody knows this.
So that's it.
That doesn't mean Christianity is gone.
It just means that this iteration or this organizational structure.
Yeah, but that also includes, there's seven sacraments.
All you'll have left is one baptism.
Because even a Muslim with a jar of miracle whip can baptize you validly.
I saw there's somebody left a comment saying, "Oh my god, I know I'm 1960s, I was baptized, I'm worried about them." Even a Buddhist could baptize someone, a Christian.
Well, and by the way, a Buddhist technically is an atheist, so go figure that one out, which is another story.
An atheist, yeah.
So, Eric, again, final...
First, I hope that we get to do this again.
Yeah, sure.
Because the reaction to you has been incredible.
Well, I think that's a positive sign in itself, not for my sake, but just that people are interested in this material, you know, because it's not just...
It's living history.
And it's also not just about Catholics.
Look, you know and I know, Catholics get a bad rap.
I understand that, and I appreciate that.
But this is, to remind people what you reminded us of, this is the longest non-hereditary, through consanguinity, more of a per-sturpees versus whatever, but the longest non-familial, non-hereditary.
Theocratic monarchy in world history.
And this is not...
They have a poll.
This is about one and a half billion Catholics.
And this is not something just to sneeze at.
So I hope, because I still want there to be calm.
And I think one of these...
Last question, and I always lie when I say this.
What will be the history?
This is really tough.
What will be the inside baseball history?
What will his legacy be?
God willing, the last anti-Pope in history?
There you go.
From your words, Eric Thaddeus Walters, final words, sir.
What we can do, what you want to highlight regarding yourself.
Also, if you find, imagine being on a...
Imagine you're able to enlist.
You're in Rome, and you say, wouldn't it be great to have Professor Eric Thaddeus Walters as my Vatican guide?
Aha!
He's in the Blue Book.
He is certified.
Is that right?
The Blue Book?
How do people get a hold of you?
Just through my university email is the easiest way.
That's the one I check regularly.
Now, what are your friends, any of your friends saying?
Hey, Eric, I caught you on that show.
Not bad!
Or, are they saying...
Both.
Good!
Because you know what the worst part is?
This.
That's what you don't want.
Eric Thaddeus Walters, il professore, thank you.
Grazie mille.
I appreciate this immensely.
You have taken us through an hour and ten minutes of some of the most fascinating labyrinthine history and reality.
I can't and we can't thank you enough, good sir.
Okay, all the best.
We will talk soon.
Thank you, sir.
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